


Allowed to Be

by isabeau25



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 17:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau25/pseuds/isabeau25
Summary: *SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3* He’s not Shiro, and they all know it. He is someone though, and he gets a say in that.





	Allowed to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure I’m completely sold on the Shiro’s clone theory, but there is some interesting evidence there, and it seems pretty obvious that if he is Shiro’s clone, he doesn’t know that. It’s going to be rough on everyone when they find out, not least of all the clone himself. So this is a little snippet that takes place after they find out he’s a clone, but before they’ve found the real Shiro.

He was sitting wedged in the corner of a couch in the most abandoned looking and hidden lounge he could find. It was terrible knowing that everything felt so familiar and that none of it should. The whole castle registered somewhere in his chest as safe, but his head was telling him that certainty didn’t belong to him.

He had begged Coran to get rid of the arm when the truth had become undeniable. He wasn’t who he thought he was, he wasn’t what he thought it was. He was a weapon made to hurt the people he loved, and he would do anything to stop that, even if there was a little voice in his head telling him he had no right to love them.

He had wanted the arm gone, but now that it was, he was left feeling vulnerable and exposed. Pidge and Hunk were working on a new one with Coran’s help, but for now, he was stuck in a castle in the middle of space, down an arm, and knowing everyone wished he was someone else.

“Hey there.”

He jumped a little at the cheerful greeting, squinting as Lance brought up the lights.

“Hi,” he said hesitantly.

“Brooding in the dark again, I see,” Lance flopped down beside him, throwing his feet up on the coffee table and pulling out a tablet.

He gave him a dour look. Out of everyone in the castle, Lance was the only one who routinely sought him out. Hunk would come looking for him occasionally to make sure he wasn’t starving to death, Pidge and Coran would come with questions or new tests they needed to run, Keith avoided him at all cost, but Lance would just show up and stay in whatever room he was in, sometimes talking, sometimes not.

Lance had brought his tablet this time, so he probably was planning on working instead of talking, which was just as well. Talking sounded terrible.

“You need to choose a name,” Lance said without looking up from his tablet.

“What?” he lifted his head to give Lance a blank stare.

“Your name isn’t Shiro, and we can’t keep calling you ‘hey you’,” Lance said practically, still flipping through screens.

He glared at Lance, but Lance seemed unperturbed by him. When Lance still didn’t look up, he curled more tightly against the armrest of the couch and went back to staring out the window.

“So are you more of a name by meaning or name by sounding cool guy?” Lance asked.

“Neither,” he grumbled.

“Well, lucky for you we can sort either way,” Lance held the tablet out to him.

“You can sort by coolness?” he didn’t take it, “also sort what?”

“Names,” Lance hit a few buttons on the tablet, then dropped it in his lap, “there you go, top 25 names for forty different planets, all of them in the Voltron Alliance, except Earth, but I can’t not put Earth names on there.”

“Lance,” he rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“You’re probably better off picking something that’s not too hard to pronounce,” Lance ignored him, “but, hey, it’s your name. Pick whatever you want.”

“Kuron,” he responded bitterly, but he still flicked open the tab with Earth names.

“You are not naming yourself clone,” Lance said firmly, “you’re a who, not a what.”

He stared at him for a moment, then swallowed and dropped his gaze back to the tablet, scrolling through the long list of names, randomly clicking on some, then going back. Lance settled beside him, shoulders so close they were touching, and pulled out his ‘space cell phone’ to start texting.

There were a lot of names to look at, and it didn’t take him long to figure out he didn’t want an alien name. It didn’t matter if he was technically an alien; he felt like he was from Earth, and that’s what he wanted. That still left him with a lot of names to go through. It was overwhelming.

Lance laughed at his phone, and he glanced over at him, “who are you texting?”

“Keith,” Lance grinned.

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” he said with a shake of his head.

“He’s on the training deck,” Lance supplied, “he always forgets to take breaks. If I text him, he has to stop and answer, because he’s team lead now, and he can’t ignore us anymore.”

“Does that actually work?” it sounded dubious to him, especially with Keith.

“As long as I make the first text sound kind of like it’s important, I can keep him distracted for at least 10 or 15 minutes,” Lance grinned.

Something very much like pride swelled in his chest for Lance. He felt like maybe he didn’t have a right to it, because he had never really been his commanding officer or teammate, but Lance had grown so much, and grown into his role as second in command so well. When they found Shiro, the real Shiro, he was going to be so proud of him. He was going to be proud of all of them.

That, at least, he was sure of.

He glanced over at Lance’s phone in time to see him text “DRINK WATER” before Lance dropped the phone on the couch beside him and turned his attention to the tablet.

“Find anything you like?” Lance asked.

He shook his head. Nothing felt right except the name that wasn’t his.

“How about Filbert?” Lance suggested.

“No,” he wrinkled his nose, “definitely not.”

“Kail?” Lance reached over to scroll through the names.

“Like the green stuff?” he raised an eyebrow.

“It’s good for you,” Lance grinned.

“No,” he said firmly.

“Padhraig!” Lance cheered, “means regal. Grey hair is supposed to make you look regal, right?”

“You’re a dork,” he laughed, shoulders finally relaxing.

They scrolled through the names together for a while, Lance making terrible suggestions the whole time. He was going to pass on being an Egbert, thank you very much.

Then they got to the Rs, and he spotted Ryo. The meaning changed based on the kanji used to spell it, but it could mean cold. He thought about the ice planet he had crashed on, his first breath of free air, burning in his throat. He hadn’t known it then, but it was the first breath of free air he had ever had.

“Ryo,” he said the name out loud, and it felt nice on his tongue.

“Yeah?” Lance leaned over his shoulder curiously, reading through the meanings, “it means light. I like it.”

“Or dragon,” he countered with a grin.

“Or forgiveness,” Lance’s answering smile was soft.

Slowly, the idea of a name that was his own, that hadn’t been stolen and violently forced on him, sunk into his chest, settled there like a comfortable weight. He was allowed to have things that belonged to him, were unique to him. He was allowed to be a person.

“Ryo,” he repeated, “I like it, too.”

“Then it’s yours,” Lance said, as if it was just that easy.

And maybe just this once, it could be.

* * *

He was finding he liked working out, particularly running. He didn’t like sparring at all, even with the new arm. He didn’t want to fight anymore. Running, though, felt good, felt like a release of everything that was built up and coiled tight inside him.

“Hey Ryo.”

It took him a half second to process the name, to slide it into the slot that meant him. It fit there snuggly, and he was finding every time he heard it, it got easier and easier to keep it there.

“What’s up?” he flipped off the treadmill and turned to look at Hunk.

“Dinner’s almost ready. You want to come eat?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah,” Ryo smiled, “I’ll be right there.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ryo (sometimes spelt Ryou) is the name of Shirogane Takashi's brother in [Beastking GoLion](http://www.crunchyroll.com/go-lion), the anime Voltron was based on. As far as I can tell, the way it was spelt in Golion means light, but you can spell it with quite a few different kanji, and they all [mean something different.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryo_\(given_name\))


End file.
